Ford announced today that the Mustang Mach-E electric car is charging 30% faster than they thought in new tests.

Since the release of the Mustang Mach-E specs, Ford has been somewhat vague when it comes to the electric car’s charge rate.

To be fair, all automakers are being vague to a degree when talking about charge rate since it’s not always representative of the time you’ll actually spend at the charging stations.

Most automakers will just list the top possible charge rate in kW, 250 kW for Tesla Model Y or 150 kW for the Audi e-tron for example.

However, you have to dive much deeper to understand how long it can maintain such a high charge rate and at what state-of-charge the battery needs to be in order to take such current.

In the Mustang Mach-E’s case, Ford has been claiming the car will be able to add 47 miles in 10 minutes on a 150 kW charger.

Now Ford has announced that it’s 30% faster than they previously estimated:

“The all-new Mustang Mach-E can add an estimated average of 61 miles of range in approximately 10 minutes at an Electrify America DC fast charging station with the extended-range battery and rear-wheel drive1 – an improvement of approximately 14 miles or 30 percent versus previous estimates.”

That’s for the Mustang Mach-E with extended-range battery and rear-wheel drive.

Ford also commented on the all-wheel-drive version with extended-range battery:

“The all-wheel-drive version with extended-range battery is estimated to add an average of 52 miles of range in approximately 10 minutes as well. Both all-wheel-drive and rear-wheel-drive configurations are estimated to achieve a 10 percent to 80 percent charge in approximately 45 minutes while charging on a DC fast charging station2.”

Mark Kaufman, Ford global director of electrification, commented

“Mustang customers love the open road and less time recharging means more time enjoying the drive. We’ve made it a priority to make it faster to recharge their Mustang Mach-E, and we’re continuing to work with providers to ensure even more charge points are available through FordPass to make it easier to recharge.”

The Ford Mustang Mach-E is starting at just $43,895 before incentive in the US.

Ford previously said that production is going to begin in late 2020, and the first deliveries are expected in Europe and the US in October, but they are planning to issue an update on availability after they restart all their North American production post-pandemic.

Electrek’s Take

It’s good news that there are improvements, but it’s still hard to understand the actual capacity.

“61 miles of range in approximately 10 minutes” sounds good, but do I need to be at 1% state of charge to get those 61 miles in just 10 minutes? Because most people don’t start charging on the road at 1%.

The best metric they shared is “a 10 percent to 80 percent charge in approximately 45 minutes” while charging on a DC fast charging station. With the 98 KWh extended-range battery pack, it would mean an average charge rate of ~90 kW throughout the charging session.

That’s not bad at all, but we will know more once we are able to see a full charging cycle on the Mustang Mach-E.